


Cabernet With Bae

by PhillyStrega



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: M/M, Nail Polish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 13:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13319154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhillyStrega/pseuds/PhillyStrega
Summary: Fluffy nonsense featuring Sonny discovering that he likes to wear nail polish and Raphael likes that he likes it.





	Cabernet With Bae

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perpetfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetfic/gifts).



> Title is from an actual nail polish bottle. 
> 
> I can't begin to explain how silly this is, but I wrote it for Gayle, hopefully to make her smile. So. Yes.

The way Sonny explains the situation to Rafael, Amanda has her first date in months this Saturday and naturally that’s when her usual babysitter has to have an emergency appendectomy. Sonny says that he sat through two rants about useless organs choosing the worst moments to explode before he volunteered to spend his Saturday afternoon off entertaining Jesse. It’s not exactly a hardship for him. He loves Jesse. Also he really didn’t want to hear another diatribe about the appendix and the gallbladder being things evolution should have removed from their species ages ago. Rafael can’t really fault him, there. 

“I have that charity luncheon Rita conned me into,” Rafael says so Sonny knows he’ll be alone in their apartment watching a pretty active and inquisitive toddler. 

“It’s fine,” Sonny says with a kind of confidence that practically dares the universe to instill Jesse with the tantrum from hell. Rafael almost wants to throw holy water on him just to be safe. “She’s gonna pack her toys and come over here and we’ll watch tv or play safari park or something.”

“Safari park?”

“She’s going through a tiger thing,” Sonny says like that explains all of it and Rafael supposes to someone who spends every day with Amanda Rollins and gets regular Jesse updates, it does. 

Rafael survives an afternoon of Manhattan elite pretending to care about the newest charity du jour and only threatens Rita a couple times for strong-arming him into attending. He writes a check and flees the scene before he can get pulled into another conversation on rooftop gardening. 

When he comes home it looks like a Toys R Us exploded. He’s sort of impressed with himself that the scene no longer bothers him. Now it’s just an accepted part of having one of the children in their lives over--their apartment is going to be covered in construction paper and action figures, it’s just a fact. 

“Hi, Uncle Rafa,” Jesse squeaks from where she’s lying half in and half out of the IKEA castle tent they’d bought for exactly this purpose. 

“Hi, Jesse,” Rafael says as he walks up to stand next to her tent. “What’re you doing?”

“Watchin’ Penguins,” she reports dutifully and she tips her iPad up at him so he can see some cartoon with, sure enough, talking penguins. 

Rafael nods like, yes, yes, good job. “Where’s Uncle Sonny? Did you kick him out?”

Jesse giggles. “No.” She rubs at her stomach and grins. “He’s making sandwiches.”

“Sandwiches, okay, how about I help him out with that.” Rafael gives her an affectionate pat on her pigtailed head. “You stay here. Keep an eye on the penguins.”

“Okay,” Jesse sings. 

Rafael makes his way into the kitchen and finds Sonny in the middle of sliding a grilled cheese off of a frying pan and on to a waiting, plastic, child safe, plate. 

“Hey there, you survived,” Sonny says cheerfully and greets Rafael with a peck on the cheek. 

“I could say the same to you.”

“I dunno, I’ll take toddlers any day over the Manhattan social scene.” Sonny snorts and cuts the grilled cheese into triangles. Rafael remembers that it’s Noah who hates the crust and Sonny’s niece Angie who likes them cut into rectangles, and Jesse who prefers triangles and, god, when did he become this person? He doesn’t hate it. 

“You guys have fun?” 

“Oh yeah, we watched some tv, played some kind of barbies versus tigers game, colored some, and now it’s lunch.” Sonny lifts up the plate of grilled cheese. “You want me to make one for you?”

“No, I’m fine, the social scene may be terrifying but it does feed you well.” He nods towards the living room. “Why don’t you take that in to Jesse and I’ll clean up in here.” 

Sonny rewards him with another peck on the cheek before leaving to feed Jesse. Judging from the detris in the kitchen there was possibly an incident earlier in the day involving some froot loops. Rafael just shakes his head fondly and fetches the vacuum. 

When Rafael joins Jesse and Sonny the two of them are sitting, facing one another, inside the castle tent. Sonny has his large hands set flat down on the ground in front of Jesse who is dutifully painting his nails with a well-loved and slightly messy looking bottle. 

“Very nice,” Rafael says as he peers inside. 

“She insisted,” Sonny says. 

“Well, you gotta listen to the lady of the hour,” Rafael says. He tries very hard not to laugh at the extra-hard-concentrating face Jesse has on as she jabs at Sonny’s nails with the tiny brush. 

Later, long after Jesse has been picked up by a thankful Amanda and the apartment has been thoroughly de-cluttered, Rafael picks up Sonny’s hand and peers down at the smudges of green polish on his nails. 

“I think I have nail polish remover somewhere,” he offers. 

Sonny looks down at his nails and shrugs, looking very unbothered. “Nah, it’s fine. It’ll flake off quick enough, right?”

“I think so,” Rafael says. He only wore nail polish a couple times, in college, and honestly can’t remember enough about the details to say for sure.

Sonny shrugs again and then looks at Rafael with an overly confident smirk. “Until then they’re kinda hot, right?” He leans over to brush his fingers down the side of Rafael’s face, his neck, until he’s gripping suggestively at Rafael’s shoulders, green nails and all. 

“I don’t know why you think you’re charming,” Rafael says.

“I’m trying to be sexy.”

“With all the subtlety of a hammer.” Sonny grins then and Rafael leans over to quickly shove his hand over Sonny’s mouth. “If you make a hammer pun, I swear to god--” Sonny laughs and Rafael’s hand isn’t enough to contain that dimple-grin that Rafael loves so much and then Rafael is laughing too, all the way into kissing Sonny. 

*

Rafael’s in the precinct the first time Amanda notices the nails and heckles Sonny for it. Sonny doesn’t blink, just says it’s the handiwork of Amanda’s progeny, so Amanda should really appreciate it for what it is. The whole thing seems easily brushed off as Sonny attempting to win over every child he’s actual and faux Uncle to by being the best playmate ever. Rafael is too aware the entire time of the two of them being very out and Sonny standing in the center of an NYPD precinct with painted nails, of all things. It’s SVU, and they have a little bubble of protection here, but it’s still the NYPD. Rafael worries. He can’t not. 

Especially when he sees Sonny actually look disappointed to find the polish flaking off over the next few days. 

“It’s little girl’s play polish, I’m sure it’s made not to last long,” Rafael says. 

“Yeah, true,” Sonny says, frowning down at the little polish that’s left on his pinkie finger. 

“Don’t worry, you’re still pretty,” Rafael says and he presses a kiss to Sonny’s temple. 

“Aw shucks,” Sonny says and Rafael sees the pleased flush crawl across his cheeks and down the back of his neck. It makes Rafael think. 

*

Rafael’s in Duane Reade for something else entirely. He doesn’t know why he stops in front of the modest selection of nail polish. He picks up a shade of deep burgundy and thinks about how it would look on Sonny’s fingers. If he’s wrong, Sonny will laugh, and they’ll keep the bottle for the next time they’re babysitting one of the many nail polish inclined children in their lives. If he’s right...well. It’s worth it to Rafael to purchase the bottle of nail polish. 

He waits to give it to Sonny until they’re cuddled up on the couch. Sonny’s grumbling at a hockey game and Rafael has his ipad in his lap loaded with the most recent “fun” book he barely gets to read. He waits until the period break of the hockey game, Sonny’s favorite time to rant about poor coaching decisions behind the Rangers bench. 

“Why scratch a guy who has exactly the defensive capabilities we need,” Sonny gripes, leaning forward the gesture angrily at the TV. 

“I don’t know,” Rafael replies mindlessly, because Sonny just likes to have someone to prod him along when he complains about this. 

“It’s like our coach is allergic to new talent, this team is gonna waste Hank’s last couple good years in goal, I swear to god.” 

“Hmm.” He waits for Sonny to settle back into his seat before Rafael drops the small bottle of nail polish into Sonny’s lap. “I got this for you today.”

Sonny picks up the small bottle and arches an eyebrow at Rafael. He doesn’t look annoyed, if anything there’s a tentative delight buried under his confusion. “Nail polish?”

“I thought it was more your color,” Rafael says. “You know I adore Jesse, but that green really didn’t do you any favors.”

Sonny tips the bottle over in his hand, peering down at it. “And you’d like this better?” He looks at Rafael then quickly looks away again, back to the bottle. 

“I think _you’d_ like this better,” Rafael says. “But if I’m wrong, you don’t have to do anything with it.”

Sonny nods to let Rafael know he hears him and doesn’t say anything for a couple minutes. The TV fills the silence, MSG talking heads debating zone entries. Sonny finally holds the bottle out towards Rafael and Rafael thinks that Sonny is going to reject the idea completely, but then he just looks at Rafael pleadingly and says, “Can you help me put it on?” 

“I’ll do my best,” Rafael says and plucks the bottle from Sonny’s hand. “You want me to do your hands?” 

Sonny considers that for a second. “Feet would probably be easier to hide.”

“I didn’t ask if you wanted me to do what was easier to hide.” Rafael prods at Sonny’s side and watches Sonny roll his eyes. “I asked what you wanted.”

“Hands,” Sonny admits, and he looks a little nervous about it but he also looks like he doesn’t give a shit what anyone else might think. 

“Try not to move too much,” Rafael instructs as he pulls one of Sonny’s hands over to rest in his lap. “I know how you like to flail about when the Rangers score.”

“The way they’re playing today that shouldn’t be a problem,” Sonny grumbles good naturedly. 

It takes longer than Rafael thought it would and he’s fairly sure he’s wearing his own version of the extremely-focused face he wanted to laugh at Jesse for the other day. When he’s done, all Rafael can see are the places he slid over Sonny’s cuticles or had too much paint on the brush. He frowns a bit as he’s screwing the top back on the bottle and promises, aloud, to do a better job next time. 

“Jeez,” Sonny exhales, looking down at his nails, painted a deep red. “I really love you, ya know that?”

“Yes,” Rafael says. 

“I mean, you may not have a future as a manicurist, but, uh, this is nice.” Sonny laughs and he looks just so happy, Rafael wants to run back to Duane Reade and buy out an entire display of nail polish. 

Rafael settles for pressing his thumb to Sonny’s wrist so he won’t upset the still-drying paint job. “I’m glad you like it.”

*

It becomes a bit of a ritual. When Sonny’s polish starts to flake off enough that he needs to just take it off, he and Rafael sit in front of the TV, pretend to watch a movie, and Rafael paints Sonny’s nails. Rafael gets better at the whole thing and so does Sonny, on the rare occasion in which he paints his own nails.

Sonny gets the occasional shitty comment for walking around with his nails painted. Sometimes Rafael is around for it, but mostly he’s not. One time the desk sergeant at the precinct says something snotty and Amanda “slips” and elbows the guy in the gut. She swears up and down that the floor was slippery from an earlier dropped coffee and she just fell into the guy, but when Sonny’s recounting the tale later for Rafael, he can see the light in Sonny’s eyes that his partner stood up for him. Rafael sends Amanda a bottle of whiskey as a thank you. 

Rafael gets Sonny a box for all his nail polish. When he hands the thing over, shiny dark wood with a lined interior, he insists it’s just because he’s tired of having to hunt in their bathroom vanity for the right colors anymore. 

“Sure, sure,” Sonny says knowingly, tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth. “Thanks, babe.”

“Do your nails before tomorrow,” Rafael requests. 

“Why?”

“Just, for me,” he says and Sonny nods because, really, like he’d deny Rafael anything. Especially something he likes doing for himself anyway. 

“Color requests?” Sonny asks. 

Rafael hums thoughtfully. “Dark blue, maybe.”

Sonny picks a blue so dark it’s almost black. He knows Rafael likes the look of Sonny’s nails when they’re painted and that he especially likes the look of Sonny’s nails when they’re painted and Sonny’s fingers are clamoring over Rafael’s skin in bed. Sonny doesn’t give the request any more thought than that. 

Which is why the ring is kind of a surprise. 

“Holy fuck,” Sonny blurts out. 

“Okay, well, we’ll edit that part out when we tell our mothers about this,” Rafael says drolly. 

“I mean, I know we talked about it…” They had, extensively, when they made the decision to move in together. They both looked at it as a big relationship step and agreed marriage was a likely outcome if they didn’t break up over shared closet space in the first month or so. Recently they’d talked about it again and marriage was always mentioned as an inevitability, specifics just a thing they didn’t have the luxury of time to sort out yet. Sonny has no reason to be this surprised, but he is, and he tries to blink himself out of his shock. “Holy fuck.”

Rafael laughs at him. “Since we already _have_ talked about this, should I just consider that a yes?”

“Yes, thanks,” Sonny says quickly. “Gimme my ring.”

“You have hands,” Rafael grouses good-naturedly and plucks the open ring box up from where he’d set it on the table in front of Sonny. He takes the ring out and dutifully slides it on to Sonny’s finger. It’s a wide steel band and it looks great on his finger, perfect with the edition of the dark polish he’s wearing. 

“That’s why you told me to paint my nails,” Sonny shouts, flapping his hands in the air and almost whacking his now-fiance in the face with them. 

“Guilty,” Rafael says, knocking Sonny’s hands out of his face with a practiced ease. 

“God, I love you,” Sonny says and he brings his hands back in again, planting them on Rafael’s face and dragging him in for a kiss. 

“I love you too,” Rafael says. “Now go take a photo and send it to your sisters like I know you want to.”

“Can you take it? You always get the lighting better.”

Rafael takes Sonny’s phone from him and smiles. “Sure.”


End file.
